how many smokey and the bandit movies were there

You may have heard that Burt Reynolds won't appear in the third edition of the Smokey-Bandit car-chase series. Is there something to this tale, or is it simply another bit of entertaining but apocryphal film lore? In his 2004 book Hick Flicks: The Rise and Fall of Redneck Cinema, author Scott von Doviak cites a lack of evidence in disdaining the notion that any such film as Smokey Is the Bandit was planned, much less actually shot: The first cut of the movie was filmed according to that conception, the legend says, and only after test audiences were thoroughly confused by Gleason's dual roles did the filmmakers cast Jerry Reed as the Bandit and reshoot a number of scenes to work Reed into a previously completed film. Hollywood legend holds, however, that in the original conception Part 3 was to be titled Smokey Is the Bandit, with Reynolds' absence covered by Jackie Gleason's playing both Sheriff Buford T. Instead, actor Jerry Reed (who portrayed Darville's fellow trucker Cletus 'The Snowman' Snow in the first two films) stepped into the Bandit role, pursued once again by Jackie Gleason reprising his earlier turns as Sheriff Buford T.

By the time the third installment of the popular Smokey and the Bandit films (imaginatively titled Smokey and the Bandit Part 3) rolled out in 1983, time and salary demands had precluded the appearance of stars Burt Reynolds and Sally Field, and therefore their characters - trucker legend Bo Darville, better known as the 'Bandit', and runaway bride Carrie - were also no-shows (save for a cameo by Reynolds in the film's closing minutes). Some sequels don't even have continuity of characters and actors going for them, however. Many devoted fans will eagerly follow any new installment featuring their favorite characters and actors. Yet such sequels still seem do quite well at the box office regardless of their artistic merits, if for no other reason than Origins: To many filmgoers it sometimes appears as though virtually any moderately successful movie produced these days inevitably spawns a series of sequels, follow-on films that all too often simply recycle the original's premise and setting without adding much of anything new.

How many smokey and the bandit movies were there